Evan Gershkovich judge says court did not examine evidence

The Russian judge who convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich said the trial was short because it did not examine any "material evidence" and the verdict did not take long because he could "type quickly".

"The case itself was small. I don't remember how many folders there were -- three or five," Andrei Mineyev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying Friday.

"Why did it go so quickly? The point is the court did not examine material evidence," the judge said, adding that this was because neither the prosecution nor the defence had requested this.

The judge made the comments at a conference in the city of Yekaterinburg, where he spoke about different cases he had worked on, according to Russian media.

Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg -- the first foreign journalist held for espionage in post-Soviet Russia.

Gershkovich, his employer and the United States have always denied the accusation.

His trial in Yekaterinburg, which was held behind closed doors because of the nature of the charges, began in June 2024.

Prosecutors accused Gershkovich, the 32-year-old American son of Soviet emigres, of gathering secret information about the activities of a massive tank factory in the region.

On July 19, he was convicted to 16 years in prison and then released two weeks later in the biggest Russia-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War.

The judge said he was "100-200 percent" sure that Gershkovich was "at the same time a journalist, a spy and a CIA agent", Kommersant newspaper reported.

He said Gershkovich always denied his guilt.

The judge said he retired to consider the verdict at midday and pronounced it at 5:00 pm, saying this was because he could "type quickly", the paper said.